A rheumatologist (a medical doctor who specializes in arthritis and similar diseases) said that if you lose just ten pounds–Just Ten Pounds!–a lot of your foot pain will be gone!

Gone!

She said you don’t have to get to normal weight to get rid of foot pain.  Just getting rid of those ten pounds will make a big difference in how your feet hurt. 

Here’s  a simple, all natural weight loss plan from me for you.

It is really easy to lose weight if you take these steps:

1.  Only eat things that grew.

(Bread doesn’t grow, cereal didn’t grow, ice cream didn’t grow…you get the idea.)

Fruits, vegetables, some meat or eggs or fish, whole grains like brown rice or whole oats–those are things that grew.

You can eat all the veggies you want, either raw or cooked.  Beans grow.  Nuts and seeds grow.  Coconuts and avocados grow, too.

Add a little olive oil or real butter on cooked veggies if you want.  Bodies need some healthy fats like that.  If you add salt try to make it sea salt.

Cook your whole grains.  Make them from scratch.  If you bring a pot to boil at bedtime and let the grains sit overnight in the covered pot they will be just right for breakfast.  Add an egg and you are good to go!

2.  Every day do active fun things like dance or walk or run or jump or swim.  Do the things you like the most and do them often.

If you can’t do such things, wiggle your toes, twist your hair, do seated leg lifts, swing your arms.  The point is to move!

Muscles love movement!

3.  Drink lots of water.  Make that your drink of choice.  That’s what your cells crave and need.

Let’s think about a dog or cat or horse.

If that animal ate chocolate ice cream and pop he wouldn’t be healthy.  His body would have trouble trying to process those things.  Your body is the same way.

Now let’s think about your car.

If you put milk in the engine it wouldn’t run.  Your engine (your body) needs the correct fuel just as your car does.

It’s hard for some people to eat the right foods because they don’t have enough money but for some of us it’s all about making the right choices.

And after a while you will really look forward to a piece of crunchy fruit or vegetable instead of a ‘goodie.’

I promise!

There are several more articles about nutrition and healthy eating at http://ThePainReliefCoach.com.  Just click the link and go to the Category tab on the right hand side and click it to open the list of categories.  Scroll down to the Nutrition category and click and the articles will come up.

And here are a few more tips from the doctor:

1. Women, buy men’s athletic shoes!  Men’s shoes have roomier toe boxes so your toes won’t be squashed.  No one will really notice, either.  (Pssst.  I’ll tell you a secret…I have done this for years!)

2.  And just because you USED to wear a size 6 doesn’t mean you STILL wear a 6.

The doctor said she had cured many cases of ‘arthritis’ in feet simply by telling her patient, “You don’t wear a size 6 anymore; now you wear a size 10!”

The bigger shoe created more comfort and got rid of foot pain naturally.

You may have heard me complain before about the state of our “food.”  Too much highly processed food (gee, I hate to call it ‘food’) comes out of the supermarket.  The packaging is pretty.  The tastes and smells and colors leap out at you.  It’s planned.

Did you know there are “food chemists” and whole industries whose only job is to get you to buy more of their companies’ products?

Do you know that a lot of the flavors and scents they create and add to your food are petroleum based?  Yup, the same thing that fuels your car.  But your car was built to use petroleum.  You were not.

And ‘spices’?  Turns out that when a package says ‘spice’ is in the ingredients it’s not necessarily what you and I use in our kitchens.  It’s allowed to be fake by the same folks who are supposed to be keeping us safe.

Food colors, additives, pesticides, hormones–all kinds of things that are not good for bodies are in highly processed foods.  The problem with this is YOUR BODY DOESN’T LIKE IT!

And just to prove it, your body reacts with muscle pain, fatigue, aching joints, fibromyalgia syndrome and other complaints.  THAT is how your body talks to you in language that gets your attention.

And another of the biggest culprits that can cause health problems is refined sugar or table sugar.  Sugar causes inflammation.  http://SugarAddictCure.info will give you lots more info about that.  The author is a nutritionist who can start you on the path to feeling better in short order.  She knows just about everything about eating to get  your health back naturally.  (I’m not a nutritionist; I’m just me.)

And salt?  Sea salt will give you minerals to boost your body.  Bodies need minerals.  Table salt (sodium chloride) doesn’t have the range of minerals that sea salt does and it has additives, too.  Sea salt even has a better flavor, more delicate.  Try it.

We were built to eat real food.  Your body could operate well, have energy and even heal if it had all the nutrients you need.  Where can you get them?  Real food.  Colorful foods (Cheetos don’t count.)  Hang out in the produce section and see what you can discover there.

One of the problems with highly processed foods is that lots of the nutrients are removed or destroyed in processing.  Oh sure, you will see on the package that a few have been added back in but not nearly as many as were in the raw product to start with.

Another problem is that some of the additives, like FD&C Yellow #5, actually destroy vitamins in your body.  Some additives cause you to be deficient in vitamins.  Deficiencies lead to your body complaining and yelling at you:  “Help me!  I need some real food here so I can feel good again!”

Your body is trying to protect you with the inflammatory response.  Your diet, however, can cause more inflammation and that creates more pain.  Pain (which causes inflammation) plus diet (which causes inflammation) equals too much inflammation! And THAT causes more pain.

Sarah and Julie explained that cooked foods are missing natural enzymes which die during cooking.  Since the enzymes are no longer in the food, they aren’t available to help you digest your food.  The enzymes that are naturally in your body must then be used.  Now your own enzymes are no longer available to help reduce your pain.  Instead they are busy digesting the cooked food you ate.

Julie and Sarah will guide you gently into the world of raw foods without guilt or pressure.  They each have a great success story about gaining health by changing their diets.  I hope you have the chance to listen.

Healing Patch Cookbook

You can find Sarah and Julie and order their book at http://RawHealingPatch.com

You can also find out more about Julie and Sarah at http://YouTube.com/RawHealingPatch

Remember, your body is really smart and wants to be well but there are certain things it needs from you to function best.  Even if you don’t want to be a vegetarian or vegan (absolutely no animal protein) you can improve your health and reduce your pain by getting back to eating more fruits and veggies and getting rid of some of the foods that cause inflammation.

Here’s Dr. Mercola’s article:

Colds are a leading cause of doctor visits and missed days from work and school, and this season is no exception. Americans suffer from approximately 1 billion colds per year, or about two to four colds per year for the average adult.

But why do people start getting sick as the leaves start to fall?

Unfortunately in the US, thanks to the CDC, nearly anyone seeing their doctor for a cold will be told that they are infected with H1N1 and will be added to the already inflated CDC statistics.

However, according to the CBS News study, when you come down with chills, fever, cough, runny nose, malaise and all those other “flu-like” symptoms, the illness is likely caused by influenza at most, 17 percent of the time, and as little as 3 percent! The other 83 to 97 percent of the time it’s caused by other viruses or bacteria.

So remember that not every illness that appears to be the flu, actually IS the flu. In fact, most of the time it’s not.

Nevertheless, as temperatures drop, we begin to congregate indoors and spend less time in the sun. This means our vitamin D levels begin to drop, and we are more apt to spread viruses from one person to another.

It isn’t that these opportunistic pathogens magically appear at certain times of the year—they’re always around. It’s your ability to respond to them that changes with the seasons.

It is important to understand the causes of viral upper respiratory syndromes if you want to avoid them.

The Real Cause of Colds and Flu

Many people believe that colds and flu are caused by bacteria, but this is simply incorrect. Colds and flu are caused by viruses, and using antibiotics to treat a viral infection is inappropriate and completely ineffective.

Viruses are orders of magnitude smaller than bacteria and have entirely different structures that make antibiotics useless. (Occasionally antibiotics are required if there is a secondary bacterial sinus infection or bronchitis/pneumonia, but this is the rare exception.)

It is also important to recognize that, although a virus triggers your cold or flu symptoms, it is not the real cause of the illness.

So, what is the real cause of colds and flu?

My simple and short answer has always been that it’s due to an impaired immune system. That’s still true. However, research has confirmed that “catching” colds and flu may be a symptom of an underlying vitamin D deficiency! Less than optimal vitamin D levels will significantly impair your immune response and make you far more susceptible to contracting colds, influenza, and other respiratory infections.

Although there are many ways you might end up with a weakened immune system, the more common contributing factors are:

• Vitamin D deficiency, as previously mentioned
• Eating too much sugar and too many grains
• Not getting enough sleep
• Insufficient exercise
• Inadequately managing emotional stressors in your life
• Any combination of the above

THE Number One Way to Conquer a Cold or Flu: Vitamin D

Vitamin D is an amazingly effective antimicrobial agent, producing 200 to 300 different antimicrobial peptides in your body that kill bacteria, viruses and fungi.

In the United States, the late winter average vitamin D level is only about 15-18 ng/ml, which is considered a very serious deficiency state. It’s estimated that over 95 percent of U.S. senior citizens may be deficient, along with 85 percent of the American public.

In 2009, a team of researcher’s from Children’s Hospital Boston analyzed blood samples taken from 5,000 children under age 12 and found that nearly one out of five children in the U.S. have low blood levels of less than 50 nanomoles per liter, the level recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. They also found that two out of three children have a level below 75 nmol/L–which is still insufficient, based on most of the research coming out today.

No wonder colds and flu run rampant each year.

The best source for vitamin D is direct sun exposure. But for many of us, this just isn’t practical during the winter. The next best thing to sunlight is the use of a safe indoor tanning device. If neither natural nor artificial sunlight is an option, then using oral supplements is your best bet.

Remarkably, researchers have found that 2,000 IU of vitamin D per day abolished seasonal influenza. This is somewhat surprising, as it is half the dose of what most adults need to achieve ideal levels of vitamin D

Please note that this is far greater than the recommended daily allowance (RDA) advised by public health agencies like the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recently doubled the RDA of vitamin D for children to 400 IU. This new guidance still falls absurdly short of what’s needed to keep kids healthy, especially during flu season.

In order to prevent the flu, children and adults need 35 IU of vitamin D per pound of body weight. So, for example, a child weighing 57 pounds would need 2,000 IU a day of vitamin D.

Adults typically need an average of 5,000 IU per day—but some adults have to take 20,000 to 30,000 IU daily to get their vitamin D level up to optimal levels. Exactly how adults absorb and process vitamin D so differently is still somewhat of a mystery, so the only way to know if your vitamin D level is therapeutic and nontoxic is by having your blood tested.

Not all vitamin D testing is accurate, so make sure your health care provider is ordering the correct test.

Lifestyle Options: Choose Wisely

As you know, I’m not an extremist. I advocate balancing healthful choices with enjoying life, which includes celebrating from time to time.

That said, if you feel yourself coming down with a cold or flu, this is NOT the time to be eating sugar, artificial sweeteners or processed foods. Sugar is particularly damaging to your immune system–which needs to be ramped up, not suppressed, in order to combat an emerging infection.

You must address nutrition, sleep, exercise and stress issues the moment you first feel yourself getting a bug. This is when immune-enhancing strategies will be most effective.

When people come down with a cold or flu, it’s because some combination of factors has weakened their defenses. You might be able to get away with one or two transgressions, but a bucketful of poor choices will cause your immune system to crash. And then suddenly…you’re sick.

When you’re coming down with a cold, it’s time to address ALL of the contributing factors immediately.

This would be a good time to tweak your diet in favor of foods that will strengthen your immune response. Good choices include:

• Raw, grass-fed organic milk, and/or high-quality whey protein
• Fermented foods such as kefir, kimchee, miso, pickles, sauerkraut, etc.
• Raw, organic eggs from free-ranging chickens
• Grass-fed beef
• Coconuts and coconut oil
• Locally grown fruits and vegetables, appropriate for your nutritional type
• Mushrooms, especially Reishi, Shiitake, and Maitake, which contain beta glucans (which have immune-enhancing properties)
• Garlic, a potent antimicrobial that kills bacteria, viruses AND fungi
• Herbs and spices with high ORAC scores: Turmeric, oregano, cinnamon, cloves (for more on ORAC, visit www.oracvalues.com)

Make sure you are drinking plenty of fresh, pure water. Water is essential for the optimal function of every system in your body.

Pay attention to how you are sleeping. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, or enough restorative sleep, you’ll be at increased risk for a hostile viral takeover.

And don’t underestimate the importance of regular exercise for increasing your resistance to illness. There is evidence that regular, moderate exercise can reduce your risk for respiratory illness by boosting your immune system.

But at the same time, don’t overdo it. Over-exercising can actually place more stress on the body, which can suppress the immune system–and you don’t want that either. You might just go for a walk if you are coming down with something. Any rise in body temperature will be an unwelcome climate for a viral invader.

Emotional stressors can also predispose you to an infection. Finding ways to manage daily stress as well as your reactions to circumstances beyond your control will contribute to a strong and resilient immune system.

Most of the people incorporating a significant number of these wise lifestyle choices into their daily lives simply don’t get sick. And when they do, it’s mild and short-lived.

Supplements That Send Pathogens Packin’

Supplements can be beneficial, but they should be used only as an adjunct to the lifestyle measures already discussed.

Some of the more helpful ones for cold and flu are:

• Vitamin C: A very potent antioxidant; use a natural form such as acerola, which contains associated micronutrients. (By the way, intravenous vitamin C was recently used by a physician in New Zealand to cure a man with “terminal” swine flu.)
• Oregano Oil: The higher the carvacrol concentration, the more effective it is. Carvacrol is the most active antimicrobial agent in oregano oil.
• Propolis: A bee resin and one of the most broad-spectrum antimicrobial compounds in the world; propolis is also the richest source of caffeic acid and apigenin, two very important compounds that aid in immune response and even fight cancer.
• A tea made from a combination of elderflower, yarrow, boneset, linden, peppermint and ginger; drink it hot and often for combating a cold or flu. It causes you to sweat, which is helpful for eradicating a virus from your system.
• Olive leaf extract: Ancient Egyptians and Mediterranean cultures used it for a variety of health-promoting uses and it is widely known as a natural, non-toxic immune system builder.

Another treatment that is surprisingly effective against upper respiratory infections is hydrogen peroxide.

My patients have had remarkable results in curing the colds and flu within 12 to 14 hours when administering a few drops of 3 percent hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into each ear. You will hear some bubbling, which is completely normal, and possibly slight stinging.

Wait until the bubbling and stinging subside (usually 5 to 10 minutes), then drain onto a tissue and repeat with the other ear. A bottle of hydrogen peroxide in 3 percent solution is available at any drug store for a couple of dollars. It is simply amazing how many people respond to this simple, inexpensive treatment.

By incorporating these strategies, you’ll be able to nip that nasty little virus in the bud–before it can say, “Big Pharma.”

Why do some of us grow old so quickly and other stay youthful?

Here are 3 reasons:

1.  Attitude.  Optimists may not always have the most realistic outlook, but they live longer, healthier lives than pessimists and enjoy living more.  Attitude can be learned and unlearned.  A healthy attitude includes gratitude and happiness.

2. Nutrition.  People who give their bodies all the nutrients it needs are much more likely to be healthy and feel better longer.  This gets harder and harder as more of our “food” comes from factories rather than farms and gardens, but it CAN be done.  The best place to buy your groceries is in the produce section, and if possible, the best ones to buy are organic.  Try to eat a lot of different colored foods (and Froot Loops don’t count.)

3.  Posture.  When you lose the fight to gravity, and gravity is winning, your heavy head moves in front of your body.  Then, gravity can pull you forward even more!  Your posture can be corrected, at least enough to relieve some of your pain.  Posture is a BIG key in aging.  When you collapse forward, your organs gets squashed.  How can your heart function its’ best when it is being compressed?  How can your intestines and stomach do their best job?  This is a common cause of constipation.   You can overcome poor posture by stretching the muscles in the front of your body and strengthening the muscles in the back.

George Burns, the comedian, said:  “It’s okay to get older, as long as you don’t get old.”  I’m sticking with George!

Chiropractor Greg Fors has written “A Complete Physical & Spiritual Guide To Healing Your Chronic Pain WHY WE HURT Your Total Self-Care Guide for Backaches, Headaches, Shoulder Pain, Arthritis and Fibromyalgia.”

Yes, that is a very long title, but perhaps that’s okay because it’s a very thick book.  Dr. Fors explains that pain can be healed.  He tells us the causes of pain, which he believes are 3:  physical, biochemical and spiritual.

Dr. Fors goes into the causes of pain, too.  Some of the causes may never have occurred to you.  He’ll tell you where the toxic chemicals that affect your health come from, and much, much more.

Why We Hurt is a logical, well-written, pretty easy to read pain relief book.

One of my clients took her 6-year old granddaughter to the pediatrician.  The little girl gets migraine headaches that make her sick. This shouldn’t happen to a child!  It’s bad enough when an adult gets a migraine.

What did the doctor say?

He said, “We are seeing more and more children this young with migraines.  It’s because of all the chemicals in the food now.”

Here are possible causes for your child to have migraine headaches:

1.  Chemicals and other food additives. These are produced in chemistry labs for the purposes of either prolonging shelf-life or “enhancing the taste.”  If something “tastes good,” people will buy more and the chemical companies and food processing manufacturers will make more money.  Diet sweeteners are a big cause of migraines in adults; why not in children with their much smaller bodies?

I must tell you, I’m all in favor of successful businesses and making a profit, but NOT at the risk of our health!

2.  Magnesium deficiency. All of the vitamins and minerals we USED to get are necessary for our health and wellness.  Magnesium is a mineral that our bodies need for lots of functions.  Deficiency is a known cause of migraines.

Magnesium occurs naturally in halibut (a fish), spinach & dark green leafy veggies, nuts, seeds and whole grains.  White flour has very little magnesium left after processing.  More information is at National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements.

When you look at the Recommended Daily Allowance for children, remember that’s a number that prevents sickness.  It’s not a number that promotes health.  There is a difference.  The minimums are listed.  In the case of a deficiency, it may take a while to build up a sufficient amount of magnesium (or other nutrients) again.  It may take several months for the results to be noticed.

My personal experience with taking individual magnesium tablets was an increase in migraines.  However, that was not the case with potent multi-vitamin/mineral supplements and dietary changes, which have helped immensely.  I don’t know why that occurred with the individual mineral tablets, but I tested it 3 times.

Another side of magnesium deficiency is that it can likely be caused by all of the food additives, pesticides, herbicides and other products of chemistry labs that are added to our processed”food.”

3.  Excessive computer usage. In children who use the computer or computer games a lot, and get little exercise to use all of their muscles, migraines may be caused by poor posture.  This causes muscle strain in the neck and base of the skull.  This would not be a common cause for a 6-year old.

4.  Scoliosis, or curvature of the spine, is another cause of migraines.  This is normally seen after hormone changes that come with puberty occur.

5.  Dietary sensitivities can also cause migraines, but again, this is not something that USED to cause migraines in children.

What should a parent do?

1.  Do everything you can to alter your child’s diet (and your own.)  Eat healthy, and if possible, eat organic.  If you would spend 50 cents on a candy bar, why not for an apple?

2.  Get your child a good multi-vitamin/mineral supplement.  Ask a knowledgeable clerk at a health food store.

3.  Talk to your doctor. Sometimes a headache is an indication of something serious.  Your doctor can determine a magnesium deficiency.  He or she can also determine whether it’s a condition that requires immediate treatment.

Even though I have given you lots of potential reasons for your child’s migraines, it’s important to find out why it’s happening and what to do to prevent future migraines.

Unless it’s diagnosed as something that requires immediate medical treatment, there are many natural, effective therapies including dietary changes, supplementation with magnesium, and possibly postural correction to get rid of your child’s migraine headaches.

When your muscles are happy–getting what they need from your diet–they are able to function better.

Humans used to eat “natural.”

We ate what grew on trees, bushes in or on the ground.  We ate “wild caught” fish and meat.  Your body was designed to eat real food.

And now?

A lot of the things we eat come out of factories.  Our bodies just don’t know how to process the chemicals, petroleum products and other additives that are added for shelf life and flavor.  (Did you know there is a whole chemical industry devoted to developing new flavors and scents so we will buy more processed “food” products?)

I’m going to send you over to an article at Carpal Tunnel Pain Relief for all the reasons you should consider organic food for pain relief, but here’s my wrap-up:

Yes, organic food WILL help you feel better!  It WILL help your body heal and function better!

Eating organic, fresh fruits, veggies, eggs, and whatever else you like to eat WILL help you get rid of your muscle pain.

You are worth it!

And, we need organic farmers, too.  Chemical companies are poisoning us and our children.

This bill, HR 875, will prevent organic farmers from doing what they need to do to get organic food to us.

I hope you can take the time to read, and please pass this along.  If you have never written to your legislator before, this would be such a good time to start.  Below is my letter to my legislator.  Below that, is his response to my previous email to him.

Re: Organic Seed Harvesting & Use HR 875

Monday, April 20, 2009 11:21 PM
From:
“Kathryn Merrow”

To:
“Congressman John D. Dingell” <mi15hima.pub@mail.house.gov>

Dear Congressman Dingell,

I have been puzzling over your response to my email.

I believe it is in the best interests of ALL Americans that organic farmers be able to harvest and use their own organic seeds.

How else will we, Americans, be able to get organic produce?

Why are you willing to put the growing business of organic farms out of business?

Of course!  That’s it, isn’t it!

If organic farmers are not able (I didn’t say “allowed” because THIS IS AMERICA!)  to harvest and use their own organic seeds, then they will be forced to buy genetically modified and otherwise polluted and altered seed if they are able to stay in business at all.

And, who would benefit from that?

The American People?  Of course not.

But the chemical manufacturers would.  The people who will make more money from altering our natural sources of food would.

Have you wondered why the fruit that tasted so wonderful when you were a child tastes rather plain now?  It is more beautiful than ever.  Almost looks like plastic, it’s so perfect.  Almost tastes like plastic.  Getting real close to almost BEING plastic.

I realize that you are getting up in years now and may no longer be concerned about your own health, but what about your grandchildren and their children?  What about their health and their choices to eat healthy, organic foods and produce?

What about all of the children–AMERICAN children–who are getting sick.  Children are getting more and more sick and the cause is the garbage they are forced to eat.

Chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, and altered genes are allowed to be placed into the things in our markets that people eat.  THIS is what you, as a representative of the American People should be protecting us from.

These food “additives” are causing obesity, autism, migraines in children who are only 6 years old, and more illnesses.

Please!  Protect us from the Chemical Giants not from the organic farmers.

Who benefits our health the most?

The answer is obvious:  It’s not Monsanto or other big agricultural companies, it’s Joe the Organic Farmer.

One more thing, Sir.

The first part of your response to my last missive talked about the problems with the recent peanut butter contamination.

Because???  I’m sure that processes were already in place to provide safety in processed foods.  If those processes failed, that has nothing to do with organic farmers.

Big companies generally want to squash little companies so they can make more money.  That’s what’s behind this addition to the bill.

Organic produce is becoming a bigger opponent of “better living through chemistry” now, because more and more people want to have better health.  More and more Americans seek out organic foods.  We want to have better health and a longer, healthier life.

When big business notices little companies becoming popular, what do they do?  They try to get rid of them so they can get the money that is going to the little companies.

Don’t let the guy with the big money win this one.  He doesn’t care about our health.  He doesn’t put love into his produce.

Unfortunately, politics is so…political.

Sincerely hoping you will remove this offensive portion of this bill,

Kathryn Merrow

— On Wed, 4/8/09, Congressman John D. Dingell <mi15hima.pub@mail.house.gov> wrote:

> From: Congressman John D. Dingell <mi15hima.pub@mail.house.gov>
>
> Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 4:09 PM
> April 8, 2009
>
> Kathryn Merrow

> Dear Kathryn:

>            Thank you for contacting me in regard to H.R.
> 875, the Food
> Safety Modernization Act of 2009.  I appreciate hearing
> from you.
>
> Recently, eight people were killed and over 500 people
> across the
> country fell ill with salmonella after eating contaminated
> peanut
> butter. As if that were not enough, federal officials found
> that the
> peanut plant that produced the peanut butter knowingly
> shipped out
> contaminated goods 12 times in the past two years. The
> Peanut
> Corporation of America found salmonella in internal tests
> between 2007
> and 2008, but sold their products anyway.
>
>                As you may know, Representative Rosa DeLauro
> (D-CT)
> introduced H.R. 875 on February 4, 2009. This bill proposes
> the creation
> of a Food Safety Administration within the Department of
> Health and
> Human Services and directs the administrator implement a
> national food
> safety program to ensure that persons who produce, process,
> or
> distribute food prevent or minimize food safety hazards.
> The
> legislation was referred to the House Committee on Energy
> and Commerce,
> of which I am Chairman Emeritus.
>
> I understand the importance of protecting consumer freedom.
>  You may be
> interested to learn that I, along with Representatives
> Frank Pallone
> (D-NJ) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) introduced H.R. 759, the Food
> and Drug
> Administration Globalization Act, on January 28, 2009. This
> legislation
> is a critical step toward equipping the FDA with the
> authorities and
> funding it needs to regulate what is now a global
> marketplace for food,
> drugs, devices, and cosmetics.
>
> The Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act would
> guarantee FDA
> the funding needed to significantly increase inspections of
> food
> facilities and improve outdated information systems. The
> legislation
> requires food producers to have preventive food safety
> plans in place
> and subjects the plans to FDA inspection, requires food
> imports to meet
> all US standards, closes the loopholes in FDA’s ability
> to trace the
> source of contaminated products, and imposes stiff
> penalties on
> companies that violate safety standards.
>
> Additionally, this bill requires parity between foreign and
> domestic
> drug and device facility inspections, increases the number
> of
> pre-approval drug inspections, prohibits the entry of drugs
> into the
> United States lacking documentation of safety, requires
> manufacturers to
> ensure the safety of their supply chain, and grants FDA
> authority to
> mandate recalls of unsafe drugs. The bill also creates a
> dedicated
> foreign inspectorate to increase FDA’s ability to
> monitor foreign
> facilities producing food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics.
> Please rest
> assured I will keep your comments in mind as these pieces
> of legislation
> move forward.
>
>            Again, thank you for being in touch.  For news
> on current
> federal legislative issues, please visit my website at
> www.house.gov/dingell <http://www.house.gov/dingell>
> ; you can also sign
> up there to receive my e-newsletter.  In the meantime,
> please do not
> hesitate to contact me again if I may be of assistance with
> this or any
> other matter of concern.
>
>            With every good wish,
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> John D. Dingell
>
> Member of Congress

Years ago, when I suffered seriously from migraines, I became aware of the cause and effect that food can have. After I eliminated trigger foods, my migraine headaches became much less severe and frequent.

My brother recently gave me some packets of honey from a well-known fast-chicken place. (That’s like fast food, but it’s chicken.)

I was going to put some honey in my tea, until…

I noticed that the label said “Honey” in large letters and “sauce” in little letters.

So I flipped it over to read the ingredients. Now, wouldn’t you think that something that says “honey” would actually be honey?

But, nooo…

Ingredients: high fructose corn syrup, sugar, corn syrup, honey, caramel color.

Not honey.

Bad.

I don’t know whether anyone has told you yet, but high fructose corn syrup is a killer. A slow killer.

Honey is a natural product. Sugar is a natural product. Sure, too much can cause problems, but a bit is fine.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is made by splitting corn syrup into parts. It is the sweetest part. It is extremely sweet. It is no longer a natural food.

Many, many manufacturers of “food products” use HFCS instead of honey, sugar or even whole corn syrup because it is cheaper to use.

It’s one of the franken-foods.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it? It is.

Because it is not real, and because it’s so hyper-sweet, it messes with your pancreas and insulin level. HFCS is a primary cause of diabetes and obesity.

Don’t think so?

How come we Americans are the ones with the most sugar diabetes and the fattest kids?

You know it’s not “genetics” because we come from a huge gene pool from all over the world. Are the people where we came from fat and sick?

Only the ones who are starting to eat “Americanized” food are getting sick and fat.

Read the label on your bread, on your hotdogs, lunch meat, catsup…you’re gonna find it all over the place.

You’ll find it in places you’d never expect. Check out your ice cream, your kids’ lunch foods, puddings, fruit roll ups, cereals, chocolate milk and syrup…

Some companies, like Meijers, have their own product lines and are putting good and real ingredients into many of their branded foods. Meijers has a Gold and an Organic line, both of which have pretty nice ingredients.

There are a few cereals with some sugar in them, and a few with no sweetners (hey, add your own if you need a little bit.)

Want to stop being a sucker for the food industry to make a profit from, at the expense of your health?

Read labels.

Buy food that is as close to real as you can. (Hint: Check out the fruit and vegetable aisles, beans, nuts, seeds and whole grains.)

Eventually, the food industry (it is a huge industry) will get the message.

“Because You Deserve To Feel Better!”